ON THE QUESTION OF STRUGGLE AGAINST WAR

Published:First published on January 20, 1929 inPravdaNo. 17.

      Printed from a typescript copy.

      Received by telephone by L. A. Fotieva.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1971,

      Moscow,Volume 36,

      page559.Translated:Andrew RothsteinTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

TO COMRADES BUKHARIN, ZINOVIEV AND MOLOTOV
	    (FOR MEMBERS OF THE POLITICAL BUREAU)

Onthe subject of yesterday’s report from Hanover that
the International Federation of Metalworkers is raising the
question of struggle against war and has adopted a
resolution to respond to war with a
strike,[1]I suggest the
following:

1.Thata number of articles be printed inPravdaandIzvestia, giving a reminder of the fate of the Basle
Manifesto and a detailed explanation of all the childishness
or all the social-treachery, now being repeated by the
metal-workers.

2.Thatat the next enlarged meeting of the Executive
Committee of the Comintern there be put on the agenda the
question of struggle against war, and that circumstantial
resolutions be adopted explaining that only a ready and
experienced revolutionary party, with a good illegal
machinery, can successfully wage a struggle against war, and
that the means of struggle is not a strike against war, but
the formation of revolutionary groups in the warring
armies and their preparation for the carrying out of a
revolution.

February 4, 1922

[1]Areference to the following telegram published inPravdaandIzvestiaon February 3, 1922: “Hanover, January 31 (Radio).
The International Metalworkers’ Federation has proposed to the
Commission for the Convocation of an International Workers’
Congress due to open in Rome on April 21, that a general strike of
the organised workers should be declared in the event of the
outbreak of war. The Metalworkers’ Federation has elected a special
commission for the vigorous propaganda of its proposal.” =

This
decision was taken by the Vienna conference of the Executive
Committee of the International Metalworkers’ Federation, which
was affiliated to the reformist Amsterdam International of Trade
Unions. The latter existed from 1919 to 1945.